44 Comments

I once made a blunder. I replied with “しょうがないね。” to someone who forgot an appointment with me. I meant that sometimes these things can’t be helped (a.k.a sh*t happens) and in no way intended to offend her.
But she took it to mean “お前はしょうがない”. But good thing she understood what I meant eventually.

Another thing though, what if you are actually mad because of the huge inconvenience/pain that someone caused? I just can’t bring myself to say “大丈夫です” or “気にしないでください” if I don’t really mean it. Where I come from, just because someone apologizes doesn’t mean that all is forgiven — or is this expected in Japan? (I mean, saying ”大丈夫です” when you are actually mad)

I will be introducing myself at a professor from kyoto university. How do i make a proper introduction to him and thank him for coming all the way here.
Also i want to say that i don’t really use keigo with my friends so i just want to say sorry if i offended him in any way.

I am Sorry to bother, but I really want to sincerely apologize for not being able to finish a project(work related) I’ve promised my Japanese friend and his family. I know this my sound silly but I truly feel bad for the fact I cannot manage to keep this promise. I want them to know how sorry I am and how bad i feel that I cannot say in person.
I used to stay in Japan for High school and have adopted the sincerity of how Japanese people treat others’ feeling with care, just haven’t been confronted with this kind of situation before so I don’t really know how to fix this.
Please if you don’t mind helping me out, Thank you very much in advance.

Hello Yo,
Are you thinking about writing a letter to them?
I am not sure what kind of project but if you tell them why you didn’t do it and show your sincerity, I am sure they will forgive you.

If you haven’t talked to then for a long time.
For example you can start…
ご無沙汰（ぶさた）しています。 Long time no see.
お元気でいらっしゃいますか？ How have you been?
今日は、ずっと謝（あやま）らなければいけないと思っていることがあったので手紙を書きます。
I am writing to you today because there is something that I have wanted to apologized to you for a long time
====

あの時（とき）約束（やくそく）をした〜〜〜をすることができなくて本当にごめんなさい。
= I am so sorry that I couldn’t keep my promise doing ~~~ that time.

I was wondering what the difference between using
Okureru and osoi is when being late? Initially I thought osokunatte was used for objects only but I have heard people scold others for being late using osoi.

Hi Maggie. Relationship troubles! How do I say and write to my long-time middle-aged Japanese girlfriend “I’m really sorry that I let you down so badly” followed by “I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me.”
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! CW

Hi Cabin,
Uh-oh…relationship problem….
“I’m really sorry that I let you down so badly”
to let someone down in Japanese is がっかりさせる・失望（しつぼう）させる
So the translation will be
がっかりさせてしまって本当にごめんなさい。
失望させてしまって本当にごめんなさい。

This kind of message is very sensitive.
But personally if you use the word such as がっかり or 失望(=disappointment) , it may sound strong.

Here are other options…

もし傷つけてしまったらごめんなさい。
( I am sorry if I hurt you.)

Or I assume you already wrote a sentence that you can’t be with that lady anymore. If so, I would avoid using these negative terms and just say 本当にごめんなさい。

By my unintentional actions I have troubled a young woman. I tried apologizing with words but due to miscommunication and misunderstanding, I made her even more annoyed. She is a Caucasian American married to a Japanese man. I was hoping after some time has passed that I would confront them and perform a dogeza before them to show honor and respect towards them both. Would this be all right to do or unnecessary? And what do I say while performing this act of apology?

Hi Christopher
I don’t know what happened but as you said if you did something unintentionally and they are still angry because of miscommunication, then just apologize sincerely one more time.
In my opinion Dogeza is a very old fashioned and too dramatic. You don’t need to do that.
Hope you make peace with them soon…

When I first learnt Japanese, my teacher taught me that Gomennasai is a more formal version of Sumimasen. However, it seems (from online resources) that gomennasai is more casual/childish? I recently inconvenienced my dorm manager by forgetting to tell her I was back home so she had to make a call to my room to ask for me. I apologised with Gomennasai and I have been worrying about it ever since because I am afraid it is too casual for the situation. Please help me in this issue. My dorm manager is older than me and we are not well acquainted yet, so in my mother tongue, I feel the need to apologise formally but I am confused about the degrees and nuances in Japanese. Please help to explain this for me!

Thank you very much for your wonderful website. I will be learning a lot from it.

Hello, Hal! Thank you for visiting our site.
Yes, it’s true. Gomennasai is more serious than Sumimasen. (I added the information in the lesson.)
But the way you say is very important,too. If you apologize sincerely, either one works. So I don’t think you offended your dorm manager.
Not just saying ごめんなさい or すみません、I would add 本当に(=hontouni)
Ex. 本当にすみませんでした。
Ex. 本当にごめんなさい。

And follow up saying things like,
これから気をつけます
= Kore kara kiwotukemasu.
= I will be careful from now on.
etc.

I’ve heard that if you borrow an object and it breaks, even if you did not break it (e.g. it was old and stopped working by itself) it is polite to say “kowashite shimaimasita” and apologize. For example, you borrow a heater from your landlord and it stops working. Any thoughts on this? When would it be appropriate, when would it not be appropriate? We don’t want the Japanese person to misunderstand and think that we really broke the thing.

Hi Mika!
Yes, although してしまい・してしまって are more common, you can say 〜してしまいまして申し訳ございませんでした。
It sounds more formal you usually don’t use it with すみません or ごめんなさい.
Also you can separate the sentence.
〜してしまいました。大変申し訳ございませんでした。・ご迷惑を御かけ致しました。etc.

m kinda sick today so m staying in and I thought “Let’s look for some good lessons on Maggie sensei’s website!” hehe
“Whenever I hear this line in a divorce interview, I wonder why they apologize for their own divorce…”LOL! could it be cause they are supposed to be 元気 and divorce is not a 元気 topic so they “troubled” people with a non 元気 thing? lol just guessing

Thank you for visiting this site and leaving a comment! Wow! 14 years?? It is so nice to hear young people like you and your brother are learning Japanese.
Please feel free to ask me any questions using the comment section or twitter (Maggiesensei) gambatte!

Tiffany desu! I won’t be asking questions in Japanese, coz the amount of mistakes I make is embarrassing!:]

My question today is, you wrote おやつ here, and I saw it somewhere in Kanji: 御八つ. Is there a reason why they are written differently? Does that change the context of the sentence?? Can you also write this word in Katakana? And if you do, does it change the meaning?

Lastly, thank you for being so patient with me, answering every of my question in depth, and correcting all my mistake Japanese:]

Good question! We used to write oyatsu as 御(お)八つ. Because we had snack at 八つ時=yatsudoki= at 14:00 in old days. (The common snack time in modern day is around 15:00.)
The meaning is the same but we rarely use kanji now. We also write in katakana, オヤツ=oyatsu and it means the same thing.
Writing words in Katakana makes them look more colloquial.
What kind of おやつ do you like?

I still make tons of English mistakes as you can see. :D I believe we can learn a lot from our mistakes.
I only correct mistakes here for LOVE and I think you have been doing great! !Japanese smile!